What’s on TV today: Sunday

Still struggling with the past: Unity and Shirin Spencer at their mother’s grave

The Sunday Times, February 4 2018, 12:01am

CRITICS’ CHOICE

Such devoted sistersArena (BBC4, 10pm)When the artist Stanley Spencer left his first wife, Hilda, in 1937, his daughters, Unity and Shirin, had their home life thrown into cold and destructive disarray, a domestic upheaval that coloured their entire lives. Even in old age, Unity and Shirin struggled to come to terms with their tangled background. Sitting in cardigans and blankets in this quietly moving film — made before Unity’s death in October — the pain of their upbringing still flares up into their faces, yet it records a momentous decision in their lives.

Unity is about to leave her London home to move into a house in Wales with Shirin, the first time they would live together in their adult lives. There…